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Roland's Trip

Bruce: Oh yeah, we ve heard from Roland. Roland started his tour in Quebec on Friday. He was joined by Will on Saturday. Last night (Tuesday), myself and

Message 1 of 4
, Jul 10, 2013

Bruce:

Oh yeah, we've heard from Roland. Roland started his tour in Quebec on Friday. He was joined by Will on Saturday. Last night (Tuesday), myself and Rick Young met up with him in Ontario. Tonight Bruce and Pat Eckel, Mike Knappenberger, myself, Chris Tyrrel, and maybe a couple of others are supposed to meet up at Kutztown. As of Tuesday night, Roland's trip schedule had not changed at all. He and Mike should be at Thompson tomorrow night.

This past weekend Pam and I stayed home to go to see the Indy Cars return to
Pocono for the first time since 1989. An amazing statistic is that this was our
fourth straight weekend (actually the fourth straight Saturday) where we had
seen a race in a different time zone. I doubt that will ever happen again for
us! Of course it wouldn't be hard to drive far enough west to see a race in the
Central US Time Zone this Saturday. Nah...

Saturday, June 15. Panoniaring, Hungary--Central European Time Zone
Saturday, June 22. Millbrook Beach, Jersey--Western European Time Zone
Saturday, June 29. Pikes Peak, Colorado--Mountain Time Zone
Saturday, July 6. Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania--Eastern Time Zone.

Today we had my aunt, Virginia Schuler with us. When they announced the Indy Car
race last year, right away Gin, a Langhorne Champ Car vet, said right away she
wanted to go. So we blocked off this weekend to stay home right and take Gin to
Pocono right from the start.

On Saturday it took us ten minutes to the track. Sunday was a disaster. We
headed north on Route 115. Less than three miles from the track, the state
police had the road closed going North and made us turn right. Now we were more
than six miles from the track. We merged into existing traffic at Long Pond
Road. Now all cars coming from the South, where the large Lehigh Valley
population center is located, had to travel on the same single lane road. If you
were coming up along the front of the track or traveling up past the back of the
track, everyone was now coming up the road at the back of the track. I can't see
where that makes sense. Don't forget, the only infield entrance is also at the
back side of the track. The trip that took us ten minutes on Saturday took an
hour and 45 minutes on Sunday. And the crowd wasn't even that big.

We were so close to missing the start. We sat down just as Fuzzy was giving the
command to start engines. The crowd was OK, estimated at 30,000. An internet
search gave me a seating capacity of 76,812 for Pocono. Not sure if that is
either accurate or current. That was posted in 2009. After the race, I read
Pocono officials said the event was a success as they were hoping for 25,000.
But I didn't see that until after they announced the crowd of 30,000. They could
have set the goal AFTER they knew the result to guarantee a success. Would they
do that?

The weather was supposed to be very hot, in the 90's. But I don't think it got
any hotter than the mid 80's so it wasn't so bad. There were 24 cars to start
the race. Incidently, USAC and CART are much maligned from their time at Pocono,
and the return was much drooled over by the credentialed press, yet this race
had the FEWEST starters of any Indy Car race at Pocono.

We bought general admission tickets for $25 and could sit anywhere on either end
of the lower sections. I thought we had really good seats. We could see the
track OK, the pit stops perfectly, and could watch any highlights from the big
video board they brought in. I can't believe they charged the same amount to see
the Indy Car 400 mile race as they charged for the 8-car, 100 mile support race
on Saturday. I thought the Sunday price was a good deal, and the Saturday price
absurd.

The race went fast, with only two yellows. The first was on lap 2 when James
Hinchliffe hit the wall. The other shunt was when Takuma Sato ran into Ryan
Hunter Reay on pit road. I was rooting for Sato, since he was driving Foyt's
car. He was running great in the top five, but took himself out with the pit
road brain fade. I was also rooting for Eddie Carpenter, a Midget and Sprint
veteran, and he finished good in the second half of the top ten on the lead lap.
My third driver did the best, with Josef Newgarden finishing fifth for Sarah
Fisher. What a travesty that there are more car owners in Indy Car that ran
Sprints and Midgets (Foyt, Fisher, Carpenter) than there are drivers
(Carpenter).

i like Indy Car much, much, much better than the fake NASCAR. Just the fact that
they don't throw bogus yellows made this race much more enjoyable for me. The
Indy Cars fly at Pocono, and the race took just a couple of minutes over two
hours with an average speed of over 192 mph.

The Andretti team sure had a tough day. After Marco dominated every practice
session and took the pole, he led most of the first half of the race, only to
screw up his pit strategy and spend the last 35 laps stroking to save fuel and
finished a very disappointing tenth. They qualified with three cars on the front
row. They might have had the top four if their other driver had not crashed in
time trials. Yet the Andretti cars finished 10, 20, 21, and 24. The Chip Ganassi
Honda's surprisingly swept the top three spots. I've never been a Ganassi fan
since as a driver he blamed Rich Vogler for a crash that I thought was his fault
more than 25 years ago. Yeah, Chip, Vogler's Army haven't forgotten!

I did not see Mike, Jeff, or Edward at Pocono, but I did run into Chris Tyrrell
after the race. We had a bit of trouble finding the car after the race, but we
did not have near as much trouble getting out of the track as we did getting in.
We were home before 3:30. I would go to the Indy Car race at Pocono again in the
future. My next race would be a trip to Canada to meet up with Roland and Rick
Young.

This message is intended for the use of the person to whom it is addressed and
may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and protected from
disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, your use
of this message for any purpose is strictly prohibited. If you have received
this communication in error, please delete the message and notify the sender so
that we may correct our records.

Oh yeah, we've heard from Roland. Roland started his tour in Quebec on Friday. He was joined by Will on Saturday. Last night (Tuesday), myself and Rick Young met up with him in Ontario. Tonight Bruce and Pat Eckel, Mike Knappenberger, myself, Chris Tyrrel, and maybe a couple of others are supposed to meet up at Kutztown. As of Tuesday night, Roland's trip schedule had not changed at all. He and Mike should be at Thompson tomorrow night.

This past weekend Pam and I stayed home to go to see the Indy Cars return to
Pocono for the first time since 1989. An amazing statistic is that this was our
fourth straight weekend (actually the fourth straight Saturday) where we had
seen a race in a different time zone. I doubt that will ever happen again for
us! Of course it wouldn't be hard to drive far enough west to see a race in the
Central US Time Zone this Saturday. Nah...

Saturday, June 15. Panoniaring, Hungary--Central European Time Zone
Saturday, June 22. Millbrook Beach, Jersey--Western European Time Zone
Saturday, June 29. Pikes Peak, Colorado--Mountain Time Zone
Saturday, July 6. Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania--Eastern Time Zone.

Today we had my aunt, Virginia Schuler with us. When they announced the Indy Car
race last year, right away Gin, a Langhorne Champ Car vet, said right away she
wanted to go. So we blocked off this weekend to stay home right and take Gin to
Pocono right from the start.

On Saturday it took us ten minutes to the track. Sunday was a disaster. We
headed north on Route 115. Less than three miles from the track, the state
police had the road closed going North and made us turn right. Now we were more
than six miles from the track. We merged into existing traffic at Long Pond
Road. Now all cars coming from the South, where the large Lehigh Valley
population center is located, had to travel on the same single lane road. If you
were coming up along the front of the track or traveling up past the back of the
track, everyone was now coming up the road at the back of the track. I can't see
where that makes sense. Don't forget, the only infield entrance is also at the
back side of the track. The trip that took us ten minutes on Saturday took an
hour and 45 minutes on Sunday. And the crowd wasn't even that big.

We were so close to missing the start. We sat down just as Fuzzy was giving the
command to start engines. The crowd was OK, estimated at 30,000. An internet
search gave me a seating capacity of 76,812 for Pocono. Not sure if that is
either accurate or current. That was posted in 2009. After the race, I read
Pocono officials said the event was a success as they were hoping for 25,000.
But I didn't see that until after they announced the crowd of 30,000. They could
have set the goal AFTER they knew the result to guarantee a success. Would they
do that?

The weather was supposed to be very hot, in the 90's. But I don't think it got
any hotter than the mid 80's so it wasn't so bad. There were 24 cars to start
the race. Incidently, USAC and CART are much maligned from their time at Pocono,
and the return was much drooled over by the credentialed press, yet this race
had the FEWEST starters of any Indy Car race at Pocono.

We bought general admission tickets for $25 and could sit anywhere on either end
of the lower sections. I thought we had really good seats. We could see the
track OK, the pit stops perfectly, and could watch any highlights from the big
video board they brought in. I can't believe they charged the same amount to see
the Indy Car 400 mile race as they charged for the 8-car, 100 mile support race
on Saturday. I thought the Sunday price was a good deal, and the Saturday price
absurd.

The race went fast, with only two yellows. The first was on lap 2 when James
Hinchliffe hit the wall. The other shunt was when Takuma Sato ran into Ryan
Hunter Reay on pit road. I was rooting for Sato, since he was driving Foyt's
car. He was running great in the top five, but took himself out with the pit
road brain fade. I was also rooting for Eddie Carpenter, a Midget and Sprint
veteran, and he finished good in the second half of the top ten on the lead lap.
My third driver did the best, with Josef Newgarden finishing fifth for Sarah
Fisher. What a travesty that there are more car owners in Indy Car that ran
Sprints and Midgets (Foyt, Fisher, Carpenter) than there are drivers
(Carpenter).

i like Indy Car much, much, much better than the fake NASCAR. Just the fact that
they don't throw bogus yellows made this race much more enjoyable for me. The
Indy Cars fly at Pocono, and the race took just a couple of minutes over two
hours with an average speed of over 192 mph.

The Andretti team sure had a tough day. After Marco dominated every practice
session and took the pole, he led most of the first half of the race, only to
screw up his pit strategy and spend the last 35 laps stroking to save fuel and
finished a very disappointing tenth. They qualified with three cars on the front
row. They might have had the top four if their other driver had not crashed in
time trials. Yet the Andretti cars finished 10, 20, 21, and 24. The Chip Ganassi
Honda's surprisingly swept the top three spots. I've never been a Ganassi fan
since as a driver he blamed Rich Vogler for a crash that I thought was his fault
more than 25 years ago. Yeah, Chip, Vogler's Army haven't forgotten!

I did not see Mike, Jeff, or Edward at Pocono, but I did run into Chris Tyrrell
after the race. We had a bit of trouble finding the car after the race, but we
did not have near as much trouble getting out of the track as we did getting in.
We were home before 3:30. I would go to the Indy Car race at Pocono again in the
future. My next race would be a trip to Canada to meet up with Roland and Rick
Young.

This message is intended for the use of the person to whom it is addressed and
may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and protected from
disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, your use
of this message for any purpose is strictly prohibited. If you have received
this communication in error, please delete the message and notify the sender so
that we may correct our records.

This message is intended for the use of the person to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, your use of this message for any purpose is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please delete the message and notify the sender so that we may correct our records.

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